Alternative Fuel Cell Technologies for Cogenerating Electrical Power and Syngas from Greenhouse Gases

Increasing environment awareness and energy demands are the reasons for emerging energy technologies with ecofriendliness and high efficiency. Of the various candidates, the solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is very appealing because of its high efficiency and fuel flexibility. Traditionally, SOFCs directly convert the chemical energies of the readily available fuels into electricity with H₂O and CO₂ as the products, which is very promising in terms of the energy efficiency yet leads to CO₂ emission in practice. In fact, SOFCs are able to allow in situ CO₂-CH₄ reforming and H₂ selective electro-oxidation in their anodes. Such a process enables a sustainable path to produce electrical power and syngas from CO₂ but is hindered by several issues. This Perspective discusses the main technical challenges of this process and available approaches achieved so far. The potential future directions for advancing this technology are also pointed out.